So many great new papers that it’s hard to choose! Liver quickly clears bacteria from blood, microbiology of death, mobile genes in human microbiomes from Fiji and the USA, Splenda makes fly more hungry, feather degrading bacilli, underwater microscopy, and what is being transferred in a stool transplant.

Events and jobs

Annual Meeting of the Microbial Ecology Division – November 4, 2016, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Senior/Tenure Track scientists for the Department of Marine Microbiology and Biochemistry – NIOZ The Netherlands

Microbiome of Death

“Biology of Death” Special Issue – Current Biology
Microbiology of death – Jessica L. Metcalf
Also read (non-microbiology but sadly beautiful): Death and the octopus – Florian Maderspacher

Also appropriate in this category is this video protocol: Removal of Exogenous Materials from the Outer Portion of Frozen Cores to Investigate the Ancient Biological Communities Harbored Inside – Robyn A. Barbato – JOVE

Pregnancy and birth

Early Life Antibiotic Exposure and Weight Development in Children – Catherine A. Mbakwa – The Journal of Pediatrics

Preview: Tummy Time: The Infant Microbiota–IgA Connection – Tyler A. Rice – Cell Host & Microbe

Review: The microbiome in early life: implications for health outcomes – Sabrina Tamburini – Nature Medicine

Special issue with abstracts from the 3rd International Congress on Pre- and Probiotics
in Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition

A Prebiotic Formula Improves the Gastrointestinal Bacterial Flora in Toddlers – Ya-Ling Chen – Gastroenterology Research and Practice

Human blood “microbiome”

Editorial: Fast-Track Clearance of Bacteria from the Liver – Cristina Llorente – Cell Host & Microbe
Dual-Track Clearance of Circulating Bacteria Balances Rapid Restoration of Blood Sterility with Induction of Adaptive Immunity – Steven P. Broadley – Cell Host & Microbe
CRIg Functions as a Macrophage Pattern Recognition Receptor to Directly Bind and Capture Blood-Borne Gram-Positive Bacteria – Zhutian Zeng – Cell Host & Microbe

Human skin microbiome

What if scalp flora was involved in sensitive scalp onset? – A. Guichard – International Journal of Cosmetic Science

Human gut microbiome

Mobile genes in the human microbiome are structured from global to individual scales – I. L. Brito – Nature

Press: Microbiome ‘social network’ revealed by gene swaps
Movement of genes across and between microorganism species could influence humans’ susceptibility to disease – Peter Andrey Smith – Nature News

Fecal Transplants: What Is Being Transferred? – Diana P. Bojanova – PLOS Biology

Press: Poo transplants transfer much more than bacteria. Viruses, fungi – even sloughed colon cells – may affect how well a faecal transplant works – Belinda Smith – Cosmos

Animal experiments

Sucralose Promotes Food Intake through NPY and a Neuronal Fasting Response – Qiao-Ping Wang – Cell Metabolism

Press: Artificial sweeteners trick flies into thinking they’re starving – Lindzi Wessel – STAT News

Investigation into Host Selection of the Cecal Acetogen Population in Rabbits after Weaning – Chunlei Yang – PLOS ONE

Animal microbiome

Genome evolution in the obligate but environmentally active luminous symbionts of flashlight fish – Tory A. Hendry – Genome Biology and Evolution

Deep divergence and rapid evolutionary rates in gut-associated Acetobacteraceae of ants – Bryan P. Brown – BMC Microbiology

Feather-degrading bacilli in the plumage of wild birds: Prevalence and relation to feather wear – Cody M. Kent – The Auk Ornithological Advances

Press: Feather-munching bacteria damage wild bird plumage – EurekAlert

Multi-scale ecological filters shape the crayfish microbiome – James Skelton – PeerJ Preprint

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Rapid response of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities to short-term fertilization in an alpine grassland on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau – Xingjia Xiang – PeerJ

High-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA Gene Reveals Substantial Bacterial Diversity on the Municipal Dumpsite – Kilaza Samson Mwaikono – BMC Microbiology

Temporal and Spatial Variation of Soil Bacteria Richness, Composition, and Function in a Neotropical Rainforest – Stephanie N Kivlin – PLOS ONE

Land use intensification in the humid tropics increased both alpha and beta diversity of soil bacteria – Teotonio Soares de Carvalho = Ecology

The role of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in plant uptake, fractions, and speciation of antimony – Yuan Wei – Applied Soil Ecology

Review: Bidirectional Interaction between Phyllospheric Microbiotas and Plant Volatile Emissions – Gerard Farré-Armengol – Trends in Plant Science

Water microbiome

Underwater microscopy for in situ studies of benthic ecosystems – Andrew D. Mullen – Nature Communications

Press: Underwater microscope provides new views of ocean-floor sea creatures in their natural setting – Jules Jaffe – The Conversation

Identifying the key taxonomic categories that characterize microbial community diversity using full-scale classification: a case study of microbial community in the sediments of Hangzhou Bay – Tianjiao Dai – FEMS Microbiology Ecology

Novel acsF gene primers revealed a diverse phototrophic bacterial population including Gemmatimonadetes in the Lake Taihu – Yili Huang – Applied and Environmental Microbiology

Allelopathic interactions involving benthic phototrophic microorganisms – Joey L. Allen – Environmental Microbiology Reports

Metagenomics and bioinformatics

Metagenomics and Bioinformatics in Microbial Ecology: Current Status and Beyond – Satoshi Hiraoka – Microbes and Environments

Metabolites

Research Highlight: Keeping microbial metabolites at bay – Andrea Du Toit – Nature Reviews Microbiology

Techniques

New Primers for Discovering Fungal Diversity Using Nuclear Large Ribosomal DNA – Asma Asemaninejad – PLOS ONE

Not sure what is new here, but: Multiplex amplicon sequencing for microbe identification in community-based culture collections – Jaderson Silveira Leite Armanhi – Scientific Reports

Applying CRISPR–Cas9 tools to identify and characterize transcriptional enhancers – Rui Lopes – Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology

Phages and viruses

Perspective: Piggyback-the-Winner in host-associated microbial communities – Cynthia B Silveira – NPJ Biofilms

Microbes in the news

Fill Your House With Microbes and Live With an Animal, Say Yale Researchers – Drake Baer

Unfortunately, no update from his DIY stool transplant with Hadza feces: The Human Microbiome as Road Kill in the Age of the Anthropocene – Jeff Leach – Human Food Project

Studies find that manipulating gut microbes may reverse the negative effect of a high fat – EurekAlert

Archaea: Breakthrough in Reconstruction of Warm Climate Phases – Marine Technology News

Alarming Antibiotic-Resistant Superbug Discovered In NYer’s Bacteria Sample – Miranda Katz – Gothamist

How bacteria can help prospectors find oil – Fram Dinshaw – The Chronicle Herald

With link to video: Tiny ‘racetracks’ show how bacteria get organized – EurekAlert

Microbes and Money

uBiome and University of Oxford Investigate the Relationship Between the Human Microbiome and Personality – PR web

Commercializing the Microbiome: No Guts, No Glory – Michael Darcy – DRG

Evelo and Epiva Merge to Become a Leading Immuno-Microbiome Platform Company – BioSpace

Merck to open new Cambridge facility for microbiome research this year – Boston Business Journal

Science, publishing, and career

How Australia fails mid-career scientists – Catherine Osborne – ABC Australia

How President Obama could really lead on open access – Michael Eisen – it is NOT junk

Where are all the award winning women scientists? – Tenure, she wrote

Bik’s Picks

Organ delivery by 1,000 drones – Michael Francisco – Nature Biotechnology